Showbiz History: Oscar's fav movie producer, MASH finale, and Fury Road's Oscar night.

5 random things that happened on this day, February 28th, in showbiz history...

1921 One hundred years ago today movie producer Saul Zaentz was born in New Jersey. He won the Best Picture Oscar three times: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, and The English Patient. That gives him the all time record for "Most Best Picture wins" which he shares in a tie with Sam Spiegel (On the Waterfront, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia). The living producers that share second place with 2 wins each are Clint Eastwood and Albert S Ruddy (though they're both 90 years old) and Dede Gardner & Jeremy Kleiner (who are fairly young as producers go winning for both 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight so they could conceivably tie this three-time record... though it obviously won't be easy to do!

1983 M*A*S*H airs its final episode after 11 seasons. The vast majority of the television audience in the US was watching. I remember my oldest brother crying and being confused about why...

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Third Annual 'Ranking the Acting Clips' Post

by Ben Miller

For the third year, Nathaniel has been nice enough to let me rank the Oscar clips.  I was so excited to write this heading into Oscar night, until I saw the first clip package.  The Academy decided to shake things up and present a montage of clips for the group of nominees, so we have to work with what they gave us.  Presenting, the 2019 Oscar clips (sort of), ranked by quality.

That’s…a choice

Don't you EVER talk to your mother like that!

If something were to happen to my boss's car, well then I'd get in trouble."

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Joan Castleman got there first

by Cláudio Alves

Joan Castleman might have had to watch her husband win her rightful Nobel, but she got to the Oscars before him. She lost the film award to Queen Anne of the United Kingdom while her dishonest spouse failed to launch a campaign for Best Supporting Actor. This year, John Castleman finally followed in his wife’s footsteps even if his chances at winning are much slimmer than hers were. We can only guess this is a bit of karmic justice for that eternally bereaved wife whose ghostwriting went so horribly uncredited throughout her life.

Silliness aside, Jonathan Pryce is finally an Oscar nominee and, whatever one might think about The Two Popes, that honor is still worth celebrating…

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An "Evita" Reunion

by Camila Henriques

One thing I love to do each award season is to scan through the connections between the films and nominees.  That sighting of Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix at the Golden Globes  transported me immediately back to 2005's Walk the Line. Amongst this year’s Oscar nominees, though, the connection that has me most nostalgic is one between two category mates: Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce, competing with each other in Best Actor, are finally Academy Award nominees.

They have a past together in Argentina, the same country that gave us Pope Francis, played so delightfully by Pryce. More than two decades ago, Pryce played another famous Argentinian, former president Juan Peron in the Alan Parker/Andrew Lloyd Webber/Madonna extravaganza that was Evita. That movie also featured Spanish heartthrob Banderas, fresh off a successful transition from being the quintessential Almodóvar man to Hollywood player, with talked about turns in Philadelphia and Desperado. He'd become an even bigger international star with Evita... 

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Team Experience reactions #2: Final questions from today's nominations

We've polled Team Experience one last time today to answer the following three questions to complete our Oscar Nomination Day reactions (apart from the podcast which is going up soon). We hope you'll chime in too.

1. Which nomination are you happiest about?
   
   
2. Which is the strongest category and which is the weakest? 
   
   
3. Nominees always release totally generic statemetns about being "truly honored". But which nominee would you most like to have been a fly on the wall to watch their totally authentic reactions/conversations this morning. 

Ready? You'll hear their answers after the jump...

WHICH NOMINATION MADE YOU HAPPIEST?

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